Photo: Ólafur Engilbertsson.

At a well-attended meeting at the Icelandic National Library Monday 16 September 2013, Dr. Andreja Valic Zver, director of the Study Centre for National Reconciliation in Ljubljana, Slovenia, gave a lecture on the importance of remembering victims of totalitarianism in Europe. She reminded the audience of the fact that Slovenia suffered, in the 20th Century, the rule of fascists, nazis and communists. Mass graves, mostly from the first years of the communist era, are still being discovered: the communist take-over was a bloodbath. Old secret police men who had murdered people in cold blood were not only walking around free and unworried; some of them were even decorated. It had also been surprising to discover that the EU supported the building of a memorial to Tito, a cruel dictator, even if he refused to be controlled by Stalin. Zver referred to polls which showed a lack of historical consciousness in young Europeans, especially about the misdeeds of communists.

Arnor Hannibalsson

Illugi Gunnarsson, Minister of Education, chaired the meeting. Speakers in the discussion following Dr. Zver’s paper included Professor Ragnar Arnason and Mr. Jon B. Hannibalsson, former Minister of Foreign Affairs. After the discussion, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson gave a short speech in memory of Professor Arnor Hannibalsson, a philosopher and one of the most forceful Icelandic opponents of totalitarianism in the 20th Century. According to Gissurarson, Professor Hannibalsson—who passed away in December 2012–distinguished himself by three personal qualities: a sense of justice, courage and learning. Indeed, in an earlier age, he would have been called “Arnor the Learned”. Since Dr. Zver had mentioned Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski in her talk, Professor Gissurarson recalled that he had had dinner with Kolakowski and Professor Hannibalsson in April 1979. He had asked Kolakowski whether the modern predicament was not that God was dead in the minds of men. Kolakowski replied that the problem was rather that in the minds of men, the devil was dead. There was little awareness of the possibility of evil; people did not want to believe, or shut their ears to, reports on totalitarian atrocities.

National Librarian Ingibjorg Steinunn Sverrisdottir receives the Comintern files from Hannes H. Gissurarson. Photo: Olafur Engilbertsson.

Professor Gissurarson then handed over to the National Library of Iceland the documents which Professor Hannibalsson—who was educated in Russia and spoke fluent Russian—had found in archives in Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These documents are mostly from the Comintern archive: the Icelandic Communist Party, founded in 1930, belonged to the Comintern, and later, the leaders of the Left Socialist Party, operating between 1938 and 1968, maintained close ties, if only secretly, with the masters of the Kremlin. Professor Gissurarson said that many interesting things were to be found in these documents, even if they served rather to deepen than to change our views on the relationship between Icelandic communists and the international communist movement. When Professor Hannibalsson’s health failed, he gave the documents to Gissurarson who used them for his book, published in 2011, about Icelandic Communists 1918–1998.

The meeting with Dr. Zver was held in honour of Professor Arnor Hannibalsson, and the occasion was that 16 September marked the final day of the photo exhibition at the National Library on “International Communism and Iceland” which was opened 23 August, on the Remembrance Day for Victims of Totalitarianism in Europe, designated by the European Parliament. The day was chosen because on 23 August 1939, Hitler and Stalin made the non-aggression pact by which they divided up Central and Eastern Europe between them and started the 2nd World War. The meeting was co-sponsored by the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland and by Vardberg, the Icelandic Atlantic Association. The meeting forms a part of the joint RNH-AECR project on “Europe of the Victims”. After the meeting, Professor Gissurarson held a reception for Dr. Zver at his home. The guests included the Minister of Education, Illugi Gunnarsson, the Icelandic National Librarian, Ms. Ingibjorg Steinunn Sverrisdottir, Ms. Sigridur Snaevarr, former Icelandic Ambassador to Slovenia (residing in Paris), and Professor Ragnar Arnason. Dr. Zver’s husband, Milan Zver, was Minister of Education in Slovenia in 2004–8 and is now a member of the European Parliament. Morgunbladid published an interview with Dr. Zver 17 September where she discussed, among other things, history teaching in Europe. Vidskiptabladid reported 19. September on the meeting with Dr. Zver and the Comintern files.

Zver Slides

The photo exhibition which RNH organised 23 August to 16 September 2013 at the National Library of Iceland on “International Communism and Iceland”, in cooperation with the National Library and the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland, has been widely reported. The government broadcasting service had an item about it in the evening television news 23 August, interviewing Dr. Mart Nutt, an Estonian member of parliament, who gave a lecture at the opening ceremony. The business newspaper Vidskiptabladid published 23 August an online interview with Dr. Pawel Ukielski, who gave a lecture at the opening ceremony. Vidskiptabladid also had a report 29 August on the photo exhibition, publishing some photos from it. Morgunbladid published a report 24 August on the exhibition, and an interview 9 September with Dr. Pawel Ukielski. In his two interviews in Iceland, Dr. Ukielski discussed the alliance of the communists and the Nazis during the first two years of 2nd World War, the Warsaw rising of 1944, the museum devoted to it, where he is deputy director, and his relationship with Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland, who was very interested in keeping alive the memory of the victims of totalitarianism. Youtube has a short documentary, made by RNH, on the messages of Nutt and Ukielski and also with a sample of photographs from the exhibition.

The meeting which RNH organised with Icewise 30 August where Marta Andreasen, former Chief Accountant of the European Commission, spoke also made the news. The government broadcasting service had an item about it in the evening television news 30 August, interviewing Andreasen. Morgunbladid had an interview with Andreasen 31 August and published her talk in an Icelandic translation 3 September. There, Andreasen said about her experience in Brussels: “The lack of transparency and control on how taxpayers’ money was being spent literally amazed me, but not as much as the steadfast resistance to work on any improvement.” Morgunbladid also wrote an editorial about Andreasen’s message 2 September. Andreasen’s talk was broadcast on the small private television station INN. It can also be found on Icewise’s website, on Youtube, and here:

From left: Hallur Hallsson, Bjorn Bjarnason and Marta Andreasen. Photo: Octavio Otaño.

Marta Andreasen, former Chief Accounting Officer and Budget Execution Director at the European Commission, had a clear message at a well-attended meeting sponsored by RNH, Icewise and other associations, on where the EU is going, Friday 30 August 2013: Don’t Join. Andreasen was fired from her job when she criticized corruption and the many irregularities in the EU and refused to endorse its accounts. In her talk, she pointed out that the EU accounts had not been endorsed by auditors for the last eighteen years. Certified public accountants did not want to take responsibility for them. She asked what had happened to the enormous sums that Greece and Spain had received to reform their economies, because in 2008 the frailty of those economies had become apparent. Andreasen said that as a former high EU official herself, she knew that the EU was run by such officials, and not by the elected representatives of the peoples of Europe. She noted that when given the chance, voters had frequently refused to go along with further European integration, for example in the issues of the euro, a European constitution and the Lisbon treaty.

The nameless and non-responsible Brussels bureaucrats would like Iceland to join the EU, Andreasen said, because they welcomed a bigger and more powerful federation. They also were interested in the fertile fishing grounds around Iceland. It was unlikely, Andreasen thought, that European nations with large fishing fleets would accept a permanent exemption for Iceland from the Common Fisheries Policy which prescribes common access to natural resources. Andreasen is now a member of the European Parliament for the British Conservatives. She said, however, that unfortunately the European Parliament was little more than a rubber stamp for the Brussels bureaucracy. The only institution to show some independence was the European Council. The United Kingdom was also trying somewhat to contain the rapid growth of the Brussels bureaucracy. Andreasen has written a book about her experience, Brussels Laid Bare. Her visit to Iceland received a lot of attention: she was interviewed on the government television channel, and in the daily Morgunbladid. Her written paper can be downloaded here. The participation of RNH in this event was a part of the joint RNH-AECR project on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Communism”.